NYT: NRA Member Offered Trump Meeting with Putin

A prominent member of the National Rifle Association (NRA) offered the Trump campaign a meeting between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

“Putin is deadly serious about building a good relationship with Mr. Trump,” Paul Erickson, a conservative activist, wrote to Trump campaign advisor Rick Dearborn in 2016. “He wants to extend an invitation to Mr. Trump to visit him in the Kremlin before the election. Let’s talk through what has transpired and Senator Sessions’s advice on how to proceed.”

Erickson said the Kremlin was “quietly but actively seeking a dialogue with the U.S.,” according to the email.

The email was part of a trove provided to Congress as part of its investigation into Russia’s election interference. The Times reported that the email was described to them by a source.

"It is not clear how Mr. Dearborn handled the outreach," the Times report continues. The article also mentions a similar proposal made by a an advocate for conservative Christian causes, to Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a top campaign aide.

Kushner rebuffed the proposal at the time, according to two people, the Times reported.